Pastor’s Blog

In my opinion the most impressive ancient monument in Rome has to be the Colosseum. It was built by Emperor Vespasian, using the booty his son General Titus took from the sack of Judea in 70AD. This was the very thing Jesus warned his disciples was going to happen in Matthew 24…

Rome is the center of the Roman Catholic Church and it’s capital is the Vatican. The largest cathedral in Rome is St. Peter’s. We are following the footsteps of Paul, but Peter was in Rome as well. Even though the Bible never mentions that Peter went to Rome, there is considerable evidence among the church Fathers…

In my last blog I talked about magic. I want to reflect for a moment upon the subject of relics. A relic is a bit of bone or cloth or any other substance that belonged to a saint. These materials, many have believed, hold within their essence some of the holiness of that saint and could…

We stayed on the eastern side of the island of Cyprus very near to the place where Paul and Barnabas landed in Salamis, on their first missionary journey. They had with them a young man named Mark. Here is the patron saint after whom our church was named. We see him young, fresh and inexperienced in the passage from Acts 13:4-12. He may have had no idea, really, what he was getting into but reality would hit him very soon…

The Sabbath and it’s Eve are very important times in the lives of Jewish families. We were astonished to see the streams of Orthodox and not-so-Orthodox Jews heading toward the Western Wall on a Friday late afternoon. Large groups of yeshiva boys and young men stream past, singing at the top of their lungs…

We climbed up the Mt. of Olives today on the East side of Jerusalem. This was Jesus’ most oft used route into Jerusalem and it passed through Bethany, the village of Mary, Martha and Lazarus. On this road Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey with the crowds welcoming him, waving palm branches and crying, “Hosanna to the Son of David!”

There was a pool near what was known as the Sheep Gate in Jesus’ day. It was a part of a larger complex of cisterns which collected water for use in the Temple. Also there, were small pools which were used for medicinal purposes. Legend said that from time to time an angel would stir the waters…